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The linear combination, or harmonic addition, of sine and cosine waves is equivalent to a single sine wave with a phase shift and scaled amplitude, [33] [34] a cos x + b sin x = c cos ( x + φ ) {\displaystyle a\cos x+b\sin x=c\cos(x+\varphi )}
In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle.The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side that is opposite that angle to the length of the longest side of the triangle (the hypotenuse), and the cosine is the ratio of the length of the adjacent leg to that ...
The cosine, cotangent, and cosecant are so named because they are respectively the sine, tangent, and secant of the complementary angle abbreviated to "co-". [32] With these functions, one can answer virtually all questions about arbitrary triangles by using the law of sines and the law of cosines. [33]
The sine and tangent small-angle approximations are used in relation to the double-slit experiment or a diffraction grating to develop simplified equations like the following, where y is the distance of a fringe from the center of maximum light intensity, m is the order of the fringe, D is the distance between the slits and projection screen ...
The sine and the cosine functions, for example, are used to describe simple harmonic motion, which models many natural phenomena, such as the movement of a mass attached to a spring and, for small angles, the pendular motion of a mass hanging by a string. The sine and cosine functions are one-dimensional projections of uniform circular motion.
A trigonometric number is a number that can be expressed as the sine or cosine of a rational multiple of π radians. [2] Since = (/), the case of a sine can be omitted from this definition.
For example, the derivative of the sine function is written sin ′ (a) = cos(a), meaning that the rate of change of sin(x) at a particular angle x = a is given by the cosine of that angle. All derivatives of circular trigonometric functions can be found from those of sin( x ) and cos( x ) by means of the quotient rule applied to functions such ...
These identities can be useful in calculus for converting rational functions in sine and cosine to functions of t in order to find their antiderivatives. Geometrically, the construction goes like this: for any point (cos φ, sin φ) on the unit circle, draw the line passing through it and the point (−1, 0).